There is no spoon...: The G11

I have had the G11 for 4 days now and have shot about 150 pics. I must say that the G11 has exceeded my expectations for a point & shoot digital camera.

The simple reason why I rate the G11 so highly, apart from its amazing lens, is that it suit my needs.

1) It has a hot shoe to fit my 430ex speedlite. This is major plus point especially shooting in low-light indoors. I would never use its built in flash as I hate the harsh light.

2) I have control over the camera. Yes, shooting in auto mode or P mode will give excellent shots but I like to be in control of how I want the shots to turn out. I mainly shoot in AV mode and Manual.

3) Easy accessible control at your fingertips. Another feature i love is the exposure compensation dial which sits right on top of the camera.

4) Minimum aperture of F2.8 at wide angle. I was a bit put off when reading on the G11 features that you can only get F2.8 at wide angle of 28mm. I found myself shooting at wide angle most of the time, something I rarely do with my 400D and EOS film cam

eras. Mind you even if I zoom in at around 50mm

at F5.6 the pictures are still incredibly sharp.

5) RAW. I shoot in RAW all the time as i do not see the point of shooting jpegs in digital cams as I won't be able to the necessary adjustments in post process. However, I have yet to experiment the G11's capabilities in converting to jpegs.

6) Macro mode. I love this! You could bring the lens as close as 1cm to the object. Nice bokeh too.

What I don't like on the G11 so far...is just the OVF (Optical view finder). It is simply hopeless. And yes at ISO 800 noise is apparent.

My last thoughts on G11 for now.... An experienced photographer like me would appreciate it more. It would not be suited for just anyone. For beginners I'd suggest going for the canon S90/S95 or Panasonic Lx3/Lx5. Enough of the talk..lets see some pics.